The Vetoed Veto

For weeks, barely below the diplomatic surface, there had been growing friction between the two great powers of the Western alliance. Finally, last week there was a spark big enough to blow British-U.S. differences into headlines all around the world. At his press conference Dwight Eisenhower said that the U.S. might move forward in a southeast Asia alliance without Great Britain. In the House of Commons, Winston Churchill agreed with a Laborite who said that the opening of U.S.-French talks on Indo-China without Britain was "inconsistent with the spirit of the Western alliance." While some subsequent analyses of the U.S.-British rift were grossly exaggerated (Pundits Joseph and Stewart Alsop labeled one column "The Dissolving Partnership"), the Western alliance was obviously under considerable strain. Why?

The Backing Out. At the Four-Power Conference in Berlin last January, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles voiced a warning to Britain's Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and France's Foreign Minister Georges Bidault: if IndoChina were included on the agenda of the Geneva Conference, the Communists would inevitably try to improve their bargaining position by an all-out military attack. Eden and Bidault agreed that the Communists might do just that. But they argued that public opinion at home forced them to take the risk; the French thought that they could beat off the Red attack. Reluctantly, Dulles agreed to put IndoChina on the agenda.

As the Berlin Conference adjourned, Britain wanted a three-power conference forthwith, on what the West's Indo-China policy should be at Geneva. But Dulles could not stay to confer; he had to hurry back to the U.S. to explain the plans for Geneva to Congress. In any event, as the British soon found out, a conference at that point would have accomplished exactly nothing. Reason: the French had no idea what they wanted with regard to Indo-China, except peace at almost any price.

The Communist move that Dulles, had anticipated in Berlin was not long in coming. "Almost as rapidly as they could issue orders and gather their forces," as one Administration official said, the Viet Minh began their assault on Dienbienphu. It was quickly apparent that, in spite of high words from the French, Dienbienphu was going to fall. Dulles began to search for a countermove that would shore up the West's bargaining power. He decided to propose a conference on "united action" in Indo-China by ten powers--the U.S., Britain, France, the Associated Indo-Chinese states, Thailand, the Philippines, New Zealand and Australia.

Dulles hurried to London to get a British commitment. He dined with Churchill and Eden, proposed that the conference begin in Washington just eight days later. Churchill and Eden agreed--or at least the U.S. got that impression. Then, just two days before the conference was to begin, British Ambassador Sir Roger Ma-kins called on Dulles with bad news: he had been instructed by London not to attend. Later, Sir Roger explained that the British Foreign Office, in agreeing to the conference, had overlooked the forthcoming Colombo, Ceylon conference of Asian Premiers. A precipitate British move to promote united action in Indo-China, he said, might be disastrously interpreted at Colombo as retrograde colonialism.

The Poised Shears. In Washington, this explanation was received in bitter silence. At the State Department Anthony Eden is considered far too seasoned a diplomat to have overlooked the Colombo Conference. U.S. officials knew that British public opinion and the strains of domestic politics were exerting strong pressure against a firm stand in IndoChina (see FOREIGN NEWS), but they were convinced that some specific development must have triggered the British decision to back out. Before long the State Department reached a conclusion: Churchill and Eden had changed their minds because India's Premier Jawaharlal Nehru (who has been communicating almost daily with Eden) insisted that they do so.

Explained a high U.S. policymaker: "The ties that hold India to the Commonwealth are slender, and Nehru stands there with the shears poised, ready to snip them off whenever London does not do as he likes. Churchill has been highly critical of Labor for letting India go so far. He does not want to be responsible for its loss entirely. Nehru thus is in a position to exert very strong pressure on London.

In fact, the Indians hold a veto over the United Kingdom, just as Chinese Communists in a sense hold a veto (by fear, if nothing else) over India. The final question is: Does the United Kingdom hold a veto over the U.S.?"

Last week Dwight Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles answered the final question clearly, in the negative. The ties between the U.S. and Britain are strong, natural and enduring, but the U.S. cannot permit Neutralist Jawaharlal Nehru to hold a veto over its foreign policy. To do so would permit the strategy of Communist China, through a chain of diplomatic vetoes, to hamstring the strategy of the U.S.

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